Winder business runs afoul of city's move to scrub image

The business partners at the center of the controversy, following an unsuccessful public appeal Monday at the Winder City Council’s work session, now say they will hire legal counsel in order to stay in business at their current location.

“Yes, we are getting an attorney,” said Melissa Hollis, co-owner of Scatts Automotive. “This is singling us out.”

She said she worked closely with a code enforcement officer last year to meet the city’s demands about parking and she did not know until February of this year that there was a continuing problem.

Hollis and her business partner, John Scatterday, appeared at the council work session to ask how their auto repair business can peacefully coexist with a zoning ordinance that, city officials say, forbids the outside storage of vehicles.

But council members, while showing concern for the business owners’ plight, could offer no real solution to the apparent impasse. They said the owners of the properties leased by Scatts could apply for industrial zoning, but they acknowledged there is no guarantee the application would be approved.

Mayor George “Chip” Thompson III said the city’s stricter enforcement of the zoning ordinance is part of his plan to spruce up the image of the city.

“We’re trying to clean Winder up and make it look like a lot nicer place,” Thompson said.

He pointed to the council’s recent adoption of a sign ordinance and planned zoning actions against owners of condemned houses in order to implement a new vision for the city.

“We have houses out there that we are going to be condemning soon with ordinances,” Thompson said.

The houses, which are being rented by the week, are used as crack houses and places of prostitution, he said.

“We’re now trying to make sure everything is looking the way it should.”

In an interview after the meeting, the mayor said the city also had received past complaints from senior citizens about Scatts vehicles parked on the sidewalk along Park Avenue.

“Several ladies up the street have scooters and they couldn’t get past (the business) because the cars were blocking the sidewalk,” he said.

THE BOTTOM LINE
As Thompson and other city officials made clear Monday night, the city’s auto repair shops belong on properties with industrial zoning. The two properties leased by Scatts Automotive are zoned B-2 for “General Business.”

The city code doesn’t specifically prohibit outside parking in B-2 zones, but it does include language permitting “any use in a B-1 zone” to operate in a B-2 zone. And a B-1 “Neighborhood Commercial” zone allows commercial garages only if there is “no outside storage of automobiles or parts … outside the confines of a building or buildings.”

The Winder Police Department on April 13 mailed letters to all commercial garages in B-1 and B-2 zones notifying them that the prohibition of outside storage of vehicles will be strictly enforced.

“If you are presently using outside vehicle storage, you have until May 15, 2009 to have the vehicles removed or moved into a building,” the letter states.

The date of the letter coincided with the date that, after months of wrangling, the city’s planning and zoning department finally issued Scatts Automotive a 2009 business license.

City administrator Bob Beck said Tuesday that city officials are not trying to run auto repair shops out of the city.

“We are beginning to enforce ordinances that have been approved by the Council,” he wrote in an email to the Barrow Journal. “Auto garages can operate, but only in certain zones.”